RAI RESEARCH SEMINAR

SEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

Scale, Cohesion and Complexity: Understanding Fali community chiefdoms of the Mandara Mountains

James H. Wade

Wednesday 20 April at 5.30 pm

A combination of dispersed powers and ego-centred networks generated within the trajectory of the Fali of the southern Mandaras is shown to achieve a high degree of voluntary cohesion underpinning large nucleated settlements, in the absence of both significant force and anything approaching a bureaucracy. Ritual density and cultural elaboration more widely, both significantly dependent upon an idiosyncratic caste system, contribute to a degree of horizontal complexity that distinguishes these montagnard communities.

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